Breakfast Nomination #15, Peter's Yard in Stockbridge

Breakfast Nomination #15, Peter's Yard in Stockbridge

Nominated by the same former Christmas Temp who nominated Earthy last time

With our fifth guest reviewer and my dear friend, Tanya Rodger Benson

Originally reviewed on July 17th, 2016

"Tombola Bamba. What does that mean then?" *looks at Tanya expectantly* 

Gary's score: 3/6 
My score: what's with all the bread? 
Tanya's score: 10 points to Ravenclaw (yeah, we had breakfast with a Harry Potter nerd!) 

Gary ate: Frukostfralla (essentially a salami and cheese roll) (£2.50), focaccia (a doughy cheese and pepper thing) (£2.90) and a hot chocolate (£3.20), then later on he had one scoop of mango ice cream (£2) 
I ate: the breakfast basket (assortment of breads, cheeses and jam) (£5.40) and a royal breakfast tea (£2.60), then later I had chocolate orange ice cream (£2) 
Tanya ate: a breakfast basket as well (£5.40) and an Americano (£2.40), and later also had chocolate orange ice cream (£2) (what a copycat!) 
Total Cost: £30.40 altogether, or £20.60 for me and Gary 

Our pros: food reasonably priced and filling; food delivered quickly; tasty ice cream with interesting flavours on offer, and they had bottled tap water in the fridges with chilled glasses that you could keep helping yourself to. 
Our Cons: somewhat indifferent service; tea was really bitter after it had been in the pot for 10-15 minutes; menu said they served breakfast until 12 but we were told 11:30am when we called up so their information needs to be clearer; table was cluttered and not cleared until our food was delivered; passive aggressive notes around the place directing customers where to order and pay; lots of large tables sometimes with just one person sitting at them so if it was busier we probably would've had to park ourselves down next to strangers to eat breakfast; really poor breakfast choices (only 3) and none of them particularly breakfast-like, and all the different breads we each ate were very chewy. 

Our experience: Safe to say - we did not get off to a good start this morning at all. 

My alarm woke me from a deep sleep and I blearily picked up my phone, frantically jabbing at it in an unsuccessful attempt to shut it off. Eventually I found myself shouting at it to shut up and managed to put it on snooze. 

not convinced we were awake yet

I disentangled myself from the sheets and checked the bus tracker - uh-oh! The only bus we could get to get to Peter's Yard in time to meet Tanya was in twenty minutes, we better get our arses in gear and get dressed! 

Gary and I scuttled about, with me barely dragging a hairbrush through my hair (seriously, my hair is on end in my photo) before we headed out to the bus stop for the 23. "3 minutes" said the bus tracker, for what seemed like 20 minutes and when the bus finally trudged slowly up the road, a small British dance took place at the bus stop of 'were you here before me? no, you get on first, I insist!' while the old lady dance of 'get the fuck out my way you rude children, I'm a pensioner and I'm getting on this bus right now' was also taking place (please note, I was not the old lady in this scenario). 

Eventually everyone stopped circling round each other and got on the damn bus, which crawled up the road and picked up about 30 tourists along the way then broke down on George IV bridge with a flat tire. 

Gary and I piled off the bus, fearing if we waited to see if the bus could carry on driving or not, we would be exceptionally late. We raced towards the mound, practically knocking over more tourists in our wake until our 23 steamrolled past us again! We raced for it and caught it a few meters down the road, relieved that we would finally make it to Peter's Yard on time...until...until I got off the bus in Stockbridge and realised it was not where I thought it was. Someone had moved Peter's Yard! Or maybe I didn't know Stockbridge as well as I thought I did. 

After a quick check of google maps, a frantic power walk in the opposite direction with a quick text to Tanya explaining I'm an idiot who has no clue of where she's going, we finally found ourselves at Peter's Yard, a mere 15 minutes late after the clusterfuck of my poorly organised journey to our 25th ever breakfast. 

The staff have very little involvement in your experience there, I have to say. We sat ourselves at the only free table there was that didn't have people already sitting at one end of it and there were cups, plates and newspapers left from the previous occupier. 

You go up to order and pay and the only one-on-one part of the experience is when they deliver the food to your table, and that's when they decided to tidy away the previous occupier's mess though I accidentally found myself grabbing the waiter's hand as I attempted to help him clean the table but we both reached for the bottle of water at the same time. Just showing once again that I can successfully embarrass myself in almost any situation. When the waiter left again, he left behind the piles of newspapers - presumably as he either thought they were ours or thought we might want to read them. However, it resulted in a whole quarter of our table being used up by rubbish and so a breakfast tetris had to take place for us to ensure we had all our food and drink in front of us properly.

The food came quick but it's hardly surprising as none of it is hot and I was quite let down by the fact there were three breakfast choices - a basket of bread and cheese, granola and yoghurt or a savoury filled roll. 

I was perplexed by the fact they explicitly stop serving breakfast after midday when there was nothing remotely breakfasty about the breakfast options and considering none of it was cooked, surely you could order cold bread at any point of the day? 

I did like that the place had an open fridge with lots of bottled water and chilled glasses in it so you could just keep helping yourself to water, though this is mostly what I wound up drinking as my tea got too bitter to drink and all the loose leaves ended up falling into my cup. Tanya said that she thought maybe the little basket was supposed to get taken out the teapot after a few minutes of brewing but the staff never mentioned it so I kept it in and wound up with horrible acidic tasting tea that I just had to leave.

I would be reluctant to return just for breakfast as we didn't feel that anything they had on offer was something we'd rush back to eat for our first meal of the day. However, I would return for lunch or maybe even dinner as I felt the food was reasonably high quality with pretty good prices - though Gary's hot chocolate was extortionate in my opinion! 

What I can say positively about this place is that this was different from anything we'd had before - I don't really feel like it was much of a breakfast experience in particular but it was nice to eat something different in a nice place and have tasty ice cream after. And when the three of us left, we went for a nice long walk along the Water of Leith which is almost a tradition for myself and Gary at this point as we have eaten so many times in that area! Stockbridge definitely has the most varied and high quality cafés on offer compared to other areas we've eaten in.

the ice cream was fantastic

We spent most of the meal quizzing Tanya on Spanish words that transpired to not even be Spanish "You're just making noises at me!" and discussing Harry Potter in-depth, and it transpires that Tanya isn't the all-knowing Harry Potter geek she was back in the day (you've got some researching to do!) so the company and conversation for me was 10/10 but that didn't really have anything to do with the location!

Stockbridge is filled with endless cafés, especially those that do great breakfast options, so sure, if you want a different experience and you're a big bread and cheese fan then knock yourself out. It's cheap (except the drinks), it's tasty and it's a lovely, clean café but I wouldn't go in expecting particularly special service or a hot breakfast 'cos it just isn't on the cards. 

What's next: Montpelier's in Brunstfield, nominated by Strevs.